The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Bebo

The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

The RCMP this week announced that HasHasibullah Yusufzaiibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

The RCMP this week announced that Hasibullah Yusufzai, 25, of Burnaby, B.C., had been charged under a new anti-terror law for allegedly leaving Canada in January to “join Islamist fighters” in Syria.Hasib Yusufzai
/ Facebook

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METRO VANCOUVER - Police had warned the B.C. Muslim Association to keep an eye on Hasib Yusufzai long before the Burnaby man was charged with leaving Canada to join a terrorist group in Syria.

"The authorities contacted us a long, long time ago about this individual, saying that they were concerned about him and just kind of warning us," Aasim Rashid, a spokesman for the association, said in an interview Friday. His group is the largest Sunni Muslim organization in the province, representing about 80,000 Sunnis.

Yusufzai, 25, had attended the Al-Salaam mosque in Burnaby before leaving Canada in January, but Rashid said he was not a member. RCMP allege he left the country to join an group of Islamist fighters and charged him on July 17 with acting "for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group."

Authorities had been concerned about Yusufzai for almost two years, and people at the mosque had been working with police before he left the country, said Rashid.

"We had people there that were collaborating with them and just keeping an eye on things, making sure that he does not use our platform for anything," he said.

Rashid said he never met Yusufzai and did not have any information about his life as a Muslim.

He said the association tries to monitor the messages being conveyed in its mosques and does not allow anyone to spread what he called "negative messages" — ones that either clash with the teachings of mainstream Islam or contradict Canadian laws.

Rashid said in recent past there has been some troubling activity that the association has had to crack down on.

"We had some youngsters who were very enthusiastic after watching YouTube videos and clips and they were trying to rally (others) together, saying 'hey, lets do something serious about it. Our parents aren't going to let us do anything, Canadians aren't doing anything, lets go do something serious about it,' " he said.

"We got the impression that this could be an effort to rally youngsters to go perhaps overseas and take part in some kind of a mission, and right away we had those youngsters removed from our programs and from our mosques."

He said Canadian intelligence services infiltrate mosques and their congregations "quite well," and their presence allows the association to focus its energy on ensuring positive messages are being delivered rather than monitoring specific individuals.

Rashid said members of local mosques — just like anyone else in the country — are not expected to agree with every part of Canadian foreign policy. But, he said, there are appropriate ways to debate it.

"There's nothing wrong with being an activist, there's nothing wrong with joining an advocacy group, there's nothing wrong with joining human rights bodies and talking to politicians and bringing attention to your matters the way everyone else does things. If you want to get something done, OK, get it passed through legislation and that's how things are done here," he said. "If you have other illegal ways in your mind of trying to achieve your goals, such as violence, such as hurting people, then you don't belong here. Go somewhere else."

Rashid said incidents such as Yusufzai being charged gives religious leaders a chance to reinforce for younger members that they need to be law abiding.

"We will not allow religious splinter groups or other sects to come in . . . and bring in their own ideas," he said. "Any branch that even allows such a speaker to come in are reprimanded. They're disciplined."

He said even informal gatherings are shut down when the messages being spread are deemed negative.

During a recent gathering for Iftar — the nightly breaking of fast during Ramadan — at the Al-Salaam mosque, much of the talk regarding Yusufzai's charge revolved around the distinction between a Canadian going overseas to fight for a country or for a rebel group. Many people questioned what the difference was between a Muslim-Canadian fighting for his people in Syria or a Jewish-Canadian fighting for Israel.

When asked about that distinction, Rashid said he had raised similar questions with law enforcement officials a few times in the past.

He said he once asked why people who left Canada to fight for the liberation of Libya and overthrow Moammar Gadhafi were not viewed as terrorists.

"What I was told was that no, that would not be legally endorsed either," he said. "I said if that's the case, then how come no arrests were made, even though you know better than I who went over there for that purpose? There was no answer to that."

He said one occasion authorities had told him they were specifically "interested in the people that are joining al-Qaida-affiliated groups abroad, a declared terrorist organization."

He said that did make sense, and said he could only trust "the better judgment of the intelligence people and the authorities" that anyone who was arrested under the law was indeed joining one of those groups.

But when authorities told him they are targeting groups that attack civilians rather than being engaged in a war, he said he had trouble with the distinction, noting that whatever the label, civilians are taking the brunt of Israel's invasion of Gaza.

Rashid said there could be many things that motivate young people to go overseas to fight.

"Some of them are just given the impression that their government is not doing anything and there's never going to be any justice, so you have to do something yourself," he said, adding that it's "a very frustrating experience" for people with family in places like Palestine to watch the way media and politicians portray events like the Israeli shelling and invasion of the Gaza Strip.

"People notice these things and it adds up. Even the most law-abiding citizen walks away shaking their head in disgust," he said. "What's someone who already has an inclination towards some sort of extremism (going to do)? They're going to go ballistic."

But he added that when someone comes into another country to live temporarily or permanently, "Islam looks at it like a pact that you've entered into with that country. ... You're obliged to uphold that pact and part of that is you will abide by the law."

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